


Ein Zimmer Mit Bad

by stereokem



Series: Faith and Giles' Halfway House for Wayward Slayers [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Faith's terrible German saves the day, Friendship, Gen, Germany, Homelessness, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Season/Series Finale, Team Bonding, Teambuilding, Teamwork, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereokem/pseuds/stereokem
Summary: Faith and Giles travel to Germany to track down their first wayward Slayer together.-Faith grinned at him cheekily and shifted in her seat, pulling out the ratty little English-to-German phrasebook and waving it at him. “See?Ich kann lernen,”she said proudly.I can learn.“Please don’t,” Giles replied in English.
Relationships: Rupert Giles & Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles & Faith Lehane
Series: Faith and Giles' Halfway House for Wayward Slayers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120040
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Ein Zimmer Mit Bad

**Author's Note:**

> All German was produced using Google Translate.*
> 
> *exception: Thanks to the commenter Jul for their advice on the German waiter's response.

Traveling with Faith was easy. Giles had learned this when he first brought her to England, but reflected on it once again as they exited the airport terminal in Stuttgart and caught a cab. Giles had arranged all the travel for this excursion, and Faith had followed his lead without comment. She packed light, didn’t dally, and seemed to be as focused on the mission as he was. She was silent and watchful as they got into the cab, sharp eyes taking in their surroundings as if she might see their target casually walking down the street.

The cab dropped them off at a dingy hotel. Giles had booked it specifically because it was near the area their target—the Slayer—had been spotted. He regretted the decision slightly: the whole hotel stank slightly of beer and made him think unpleasantly of days of rumpled clothes and heavy drinking when he did not let off the bottle for more than an hour. Even Faith, who had been living in a veritable dump before, wrinkled her nose.

“You take me the nicest places, G,” she muttered.

Their room sported two double beds that looked more like twins and were hard as floorboards. Giles unpacked efficiently while Faith merely dumped her bag on the bed and flopped down next to it. The mattress squeaked loudly. She prodded it experimentally.

“No sneaky sex in these rooms, that’s for sure,” she said, bouncing again. She looked at where he was unpacking on his bed a few feet from hers and gave him a sly look. “I suppose this is a bad time to tell you that I sleep in the nude.”

Despite himself, Giles felt his face color a bit. “Faith—”

“Dude, don’t pop a gasket, I’m kidding. I brought PJ’s.”

Giles was about to reply when, from upstairs, the unmistakable sounds of thumping and squeaking started up in earnest.

“Let’s go out,” he said.

-

For those first two days, they spent very little time in their hotel room. Instead, they explored the surrounding area, getting a read of the locale and its inhabitants. They were on the bad side of town, that was certain. The Slayer they were trying to find was last seen stealing from a street vendor around here—though, given the number of street vendors and the number of likely thieves Giles spotted as they explored the streets, they were unlikely to find her by her larcenous habits alone.

Faith informed him (unnecessarily) that she didn’t “speak a lick of German”, so she left chatting to the locals to Giles. Some of them seemed pretty friendly—mostly middle-aged women who looked upon Giles appreciatively, with his nice coat and kind eyes and British accent— but a lot of them were either gruff or skittish. Most of them had seen plenty of young girls stealing. Only one of them had seen one scale straight up the side of a building with her stolen goods under arm.

 _“She was little,”_ a grandmotherly woman told Giles in German on their third day in Stuttgart. Her accent was thick and her voice was rough from a lifetime of smoking. _“Blonde. She was wearing a dirty pink shirt.”_

 _“Do you know where we might find her?”_ Giles asked.

The old woman shook her head; she did not know, but she did tell him about a group of flats that had been abandoned where homeless kids were known to squat. Giles scribbled down the address in his pocket-diary and thanked the woman. He turned and beckoned to Faith, who had been leaning against a wall nearby and flipping through a tiny English-to-German phrasebook. He wasn’t sure where she had picked it up, or _why_ —Faith had never seemed interesting in something so pedestrian as book learning. He had simply walked out of the shower on their second day in town and seen her laying on her stomach on her bed, flipping through it almost aimlessly. She pretty much carried it around after that. By the looks of it—dog-eared, worn, stained with something that looked like coffee—she had nicked it from somewhere.

Seeing Giles, Faith snapped the booklet shut and shoved it into her back pocket, falling into step. 

“Got something?”

“Maybe. She might be homeless.”

“Fits,” said Faith. “She got a turf?”

-

The empty apartments were located across the street from a string of dingy restaurants serving suspicious-looking fare. That evening, Faith and Giles found themselves sitting at a tiny little table next to the dirty window that looked out on the street. They had a clear view of the apartments.

“Think we’re actually gonna see this chick?” Faith asked as the harassed and sweaty waiter brought them their menus. Giles tried not to think too much about how sticky the plastic menus were.

“We might,” he returned, scanning. He glanced up at her; she was also looking over her menu as if she could read it, but he presumed she was merely trying to blend in. He would end up ordering for her, as he had done for every previous meal. “Do you remember what we talked about? How to approach her?”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Hands up, non-threatening.”

“And I do the talking.”

“And you do the talking,” she replied. She glanced out the window again. “I still think we should just park it on the roof of this place. Do a proper stake-out.”

“We might have to. But I’d rather be inside as long as possible.”

Instead of retorting or making fun of him, Faith nodded. “Yeah, I guess. It was cold as tits last night.”

Just then, the waiter came back for their orders.

 _“I’ll have the Strammer Max, please,”_ Giles told the waiter in German, handing back his menu.

 _“I want the leberkässemmel,”_ Faith said. Also in German.

Both Giles and the waiter stared at her. Not for lack of comprehension—they had both understood her just fine. It was her _accent_. . . .

 _“Gern,”_ the waiter said faintly, taking Faith’s menu. He was staring at her in something akin to horror. He scuttled back to the kitchen.

Giles continued to stare at Faith. She grinned at him cheekily and shifted in her seat, pulling out the worn little English-to-German phrasebook and waving it at him. “See? _Ich kann lernen_ ,” she said proudly. _I can learn._

“Please don’t,” Giles replied in English. 

Faith frowned. “Why?”

Giles pursed his lips. How could he explain? “Your accent. . . .” it was Bostonian. She had spoken German with a Bostonian accent and it was one of the weirdest and worst things he had ever heard, which was saying a lot. “It’s—”

Faith stilled suddenly. Her gaze was directed out the window, tracking something in the gathering darkness. “G. That’s her.”

Giles looked through the window. On the building across from them, a small shape was moving up the fire escape. It was a person—a tiny person—wearing a pink t-shirt.

He was about to open his mouth to question—just because she was wearing a pink shirt didn’t mean she was the girl they were looking for, it could be a complete coincidence—but something about Faith’s expression made all doubt die in his mouth. Her face was intent, focused, like that of a cat watching a mouse.

They both watched as the figure leapt from the fire escape to a window ledge, landing far more gracefully than an ordinary human, and slipped through the window into the empty apartment. After a moment, a little light flickered on.

Faith was on her feet and out the door in an instant. Giles was just one step behind her.

-

The old building had been condemned. The floorboards and stairs creaked when they stepped on them and creaked when they didn’t. The whole damn building smelled of mold and stale piss. It turned Giles stomach to think that a young girl was _living_ here.

When they finally made it to the second-floor hallway, it was apparent which room the girl was in. The door was slightly ajar, and they could see the light—what looked like the flickering glow of several candles—through the space between the door and the frame. Faith, who had been leading the trek, paused right before the door and turned to Giles, who was so close behind her that their faces were inches apart.

“So . . . do we, like, just bust in?” Faith breathed. “Or knock politely?”

Giles licked his lips; he could feel his heart thudding slightly in anticipation. “I, erm, I hadn’t actually thought—”

Just then, the door burst open and a hand grabbed Faith by the hair.

“FUCK!” Faith yelled as she was dragged backwards. Giles darted out a hand to try and grasp her, but she was yanked back into the room, kicking and clawing.

“Faith!” Giles’ heart leapt in his chest as he scrambled to follow her inside.

The room was dark, decrepit, and filthy. Three wax candles burned in various locations around the room, casting it in flickering orange light. In the middle of the room, the girl, a tiny, stringy little blonde, was still dragging Faith by the hair. Giles saw that she was unclean, her light eyes wild and scared. Her gaze turned to Giles as he entered.

 _“Who—?”_ she began in German, but just then, Faith reverse-head-butted her, causing her to stumble backwards.

In an instant, Faith was on her, sweeping the girl’s legs out from under her and slamming her to the floor. The girl struck out but Faith was quicker, grabbing her outstretched hand by the wrist and slamming it to the floor while she grasped for the other. The girl was quite clearly malnourished—bone thin— and not up to her full strength, but she fought like anything, screaming and snarling and thrashing in Faith’s grip. Faith tightened her hold, trying to avoid being bucked off, when finally she yelled over the girl’s screaming:—

 _“Halt!_ _Du verrückte Schlampe!”_

They were not the words that Giles would have chosen—they were definitely not part of the language he and Faith had discussed for approaching rogue Slayers. He didn't know where Faith would have even picked up such language, as _that_ was unlikely to be in her little English-to-German phrasebook. But, the words were nonetheless immediately effective. The girl stopped struggling and stared up at Faith, mouth hanging open.

Everything went still for a long moment. Giles said nothing, watching the two young women size each other up.

Finally, seeing that the girl was not struggling, Faith loosened her grip. She allowed the girl to crawl out from under her. The girl scooted backwards on the floor until her back was pressed up against one of the grimy walls. After a tense moment, she said in slow, heavily-accented English:

“Your German is _so_ weird.”

Giles couldn’t help it. He laughed.

-

Her name was Klara Sommer. She was nearly seventeen and had been living on the streets for almost a year, ever since she came into her powers. Her parents had died when she was thirteen, and she had been living with an uncle until last year. Her older cousin, an eighteen-year-old boy, had abused her and her uncle had been too much of a drunk to care. When she turned sixteen, she fought back. Nearly put the kid in the hospital. Her uncle had called her psycho, a good-for-nothing whore, and put her out on the street.

She did not seem sure of Giles, whom she watched with guarded haughtiness as he explained why he and Faith were there. She narrowed her eyes as he talked, asked pointed and shrewd questions. A place to stay? Others like her? It seemed too good to be true.

“You expect me to just trust you?” Klara asked, folding her arms tightly across her thin chest. “You expect me to just leave with you—some _man_?” She spat the word like a slur.

Faith, who had remained quiet during Giles’ entire spiel, suddenly sat up straighter. She spoke:

“He’s a good guy. They exist out there.” She turned her body fully to Klara, crossing her legs and clasping her hands together. “Look, I know what you’re feeling right now. I was there too, at one point. It’s fucking terrifying, being this strong and not having anywhere you belong. But you don’t gotta be alone. You can have a home. You can have sisters. A family.”

Klara continued to look doubtful. Seeing this, Faith huffed.

“Look, we’re not gonna fucking force you. But if you come with us you can have your own room with an en suite bathroom— _ein zimmer mit bad_ — and real training and steady meals. Speaking of, this dude and I are hungry and tired, so we’re gonna go grab a bite to eat—somewhere with _good_ food,” she shot at Giles. Then, turning to Klara again: “Just come with us—it’ll be our treat—and think it over. Deal?”

-

Giles had to admit: gruff and unpolished as it was, Faith’s style was unique and incomparable. And effective.

Klara sat down with them at a not-so-dingy café. She ate two full meals by herself. She asked Giles a plethora of questions. Faith too. And, when all was said and done, she had said, “Fine. I’ll go with you.”

Twenty-six hours later, they were back in Giles’ house in Jolly Old England. Klara was busy upstairs having a shower and changing into some of Faith’s clothes. Faith had offered to take her shopping for some of her own in the morning-- in exchange for teaching Faith more curses in German. 

As the water ran upstairs, Faith, also freshly showered, lounged on the leather sofa while Giles poured two tumblers full of whisky. He handed one to Faith, who took it with a grin and clinked her glass with his.

“We did good, G.”

Giles looked down at her. She was, for once, not wearing her dark make-up, and her face seemed younger, more open. The smile she was directing at him was almost cute-- though he knew that she would trounce him soundly for ever saying so. 

He couldn’t recall ever seeing Faith like this: satisfied, accomplished, genuinely pleased for having done something good.

He hid his own smile behind his whisky glass.

“Yes, we did.”


End file.
